First off, I have to say I hate my server. During these 5 tests, I was killed 3 times. Since _my_ biggest concern with growl changes is just that they change, I wanted to get a baseline on live and test a few things out before heading over to test realms (thankfully I was smart enough to copy to the PvE).

I still need to do a few more sets of testing but here’s what I have (Note – IHM adds 110 AP to both):

Conditions

RAP

PAP

healing done

threat @ agro

No Armor

505

415

1750

673

BM legs

1565

718

1750

673

BM legs
+IHM

1675

828

1750

673

BM legs
+IHM
+CoA

1875

872

2125

817

Glad. legs
+IHM
+CoA

1958

820

1750

673

So what does this say?

The first thing is a single tick of rank 1 Mend pet generates ~9.6 threat, so on the tick just before pulling agro I had 663.4 threat. I think it’s safe to say that the 664 base threat of growl 8 is unchanged.

More importantly, this is live so my data is already screwed up from what I thought was happening. Perhaps this has been in for awhile, that’s my hope. Anyway, I’m glad I compared most of the ‘important’ families all at once for accurate comparison. I doubt some one looking to get the most out of their pets is going to care how a Nether Ray compares to a Serpent.

Now on to the actual data. Clearly, threat is scaling with PAP not RAP. My initial goal was just to get a change of any kind. To find the actual scaling factor I’d need 2 points (if it’s linear), but a flat line would just tell me I could not test at all. I finally got my bump by using my Core of Ar’kelos for +200 RAP. I then swapped out my Leggings of Beast Mastery for Gladiator’s Chain Leggings. Even though my RAP went up, my PAP went down, and the bump is gone. Growl scales with PAP.

Before going on, I will be doing 4 more tests tonight. #1 is confirm the bump. #2 is confirm no bump with higher RAP, but lower PAP, #3 is try the bump with 1-2 pieces of armor off to get a second data point, #4 is to try the bump without IHM. That last one might be the most critical.

Notice that 2 of the non bumps are well above the 734 PAP threshold. On my first non-bump with HM my gut was telling me that IHM was having no effect. This would mean that rather than ‘adding AP to attacks,’ it actually had the effect of ‘increases damage by X.’ That would probably make more sense anyway. The further tests basically confirmed it for me as follows:

The bump showed increased threat of 144, and prior to ‘the change,’ 1PAP increased growl’s threat by 5.7 when above 734. Since it’s still scaling with PAP, let’s assume the ratio also hasn’t changed. The extra 153 threat would convert to 27 AP, so the pet would have to have 761 PAP to generate a growl like that. Now suppose that IHM has no affect, but I mistakenly add it in to the PAP yielding 871 PAP. Only 1 away from my ‘bumps’ total. Dun, Dun, DUN!

Now, I could use more data, but here’s what this testing seems to show:

Growl scales with PAP not RAP

Leggings of Beast Mastery increase the PAP of the pet and influence Growl.

Improved Hunter’s Mark does not affect growl (possibly). If this is ‘new’ it screws me up, otherwise ‘Yay!’ and simultaneously ‘Boo!’ Allowing IHM to affect growl would help agro TONS.

To give you an idea of how ‘powerful’ LoBM are for an unbuffed pet, the RAP threshold is lowered by 318. If you’re close to the RAP threshold, it will help tons, if not, it will get you there quicker. Simply using Kibler’s Bits will lower the threshold by 90 and/or increase threat by up to 114. If IHM was also allowed to influence growl, the threshold would be reduced by 500. It’s a freaking 2nd tier talent in a tree almost everyone puts at least 12-20 points in. If hunter’s want to ‘fix’ growl, making this change would do it.

I just realized I should test Kibler’s Bits as well.

I’m also curious about Blessings of Might and Gift of the Wild influencing growl…

Hopefully, I’ll get a chance tonight to do a few more live tests to confirm the 734 threshold still exists, and then a couple on test to see what’s going on there.

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

2 Comments

My assumption (and nothing but an assumption) on IHM: If I were going to implement it, I’d probably treat it as an effect of the target, and I’d probably apply it only when damage is finally resolved. This means it wouldn’t be handy when I was calculating Growl’s threat, so I’d probably ignore it for that purpose. Depending on the messaging setup, it can be really annoying to wire new data into the late combat path.

For myself, I’ve been experimenting with base Growl threat — how it scales between ranks, for instance (answer: linearly, cappped at just below the base threat of the next rank) — and also the PAP-scaling-point on lower level pets/hunters. So I am most happy to leave the leggings, IHM, Kibler’s Bits, Blessing of Might, etc all to you. :>